5/08/15 - Concept Development

Haha, sooo, the daily grandma is a bit less daily than intended. Sorry about that but anyway...

I did a turnaround of Rufus so I could model him. I modeled his little soft toy that he licks on the beach as can be seen below.

I'm not sure whether to rig or texture it first so I'll have to ask lil keatlekattles about it tomorrow. But yeah! I'm not dead~

I've started modelling my lil beanpod of a man.

28/07/15 - Concept Development

Critique
Joanne said that the red one was her favourite of the bunch and I agreed because visually red will stand out the most and catch they eye. However, the orange is a close second. I decided on red eventually because red is the colour of passion and love in western culture so I thought it was a clever colour to choose for this gift to Rufus from Bartholomew. I almost went with orange because I like how vibrant it is and has energetic connotations surrounding it which I feel would be more appropriate for a happier piece but because I want to emphasize that what is happening is about love and sadness it didn't fit.

The mouse shape is simple and not very mouse like because Bartholomew is not great at sewing which I thought would be quite cute.

22/07/15 - Concept Development

THE VOTES ARE IN 
The 3rd colour scheme won overall!!!

Lauren said "You could make Rufus sunburnt with tan lines from before he rolled up his sleeves." 

I wanted to test out how the overall colour palette of the scene would work and if Rufus was visible enough.

Also just checking that it works close up. 

21/07/15 - Concept Development

Today I worked on the little sewn mouse design that Bartholomew made for Rufus. I wanted to experiment with shape and weight and keep in mind that Bartholomew had very limited materials and sewing skills.

I quite like the stupid cube design so I might keep that for the final. I like it because it looks quite cute and badly made, so it fits with Bartholomew as a vague character. 

I put up a vote for which Rufus colour design is the favourite on facebook. That's how I'll decide which one to go with for animating.
Votes are sitting at:

• 1 = 7
• 2 = 14
• 3 = 15
• 4 = 4

This is at 11am, I'm going to wait until I posted it so I've given a good 24 hours to vote

20/07/15 - Concept Development

Character Profile

Rufus is a 42 year old English man who works as a privateer for England. His story is worth telling because it shows ho hardship in the form of a relationship ending can affect the way someone behaves. In Rufus' case, he becomes so distraught due to the death of his lover Bartholomew that he jumps ship to die along on a desert island.

The most important thing about Rufus is that he has lived a very full life as a pirate but has come to the realization that sharing that life with someone makes all the tough times worth it, and the good times addictive and incredible. 

Rufus is a scrawny, weathered fellow with a pot belly, a beard, very thick eyebrows, a facial scar, and an earring. As he is an older man, he has little hair that is now greying. 

Rufus started life in Christianity but lost his faith to more spiritual experiences picked and chosen from myths, legends and superstitions that he has come across in his time as a pirate. 

Rufus likes a Capella singing and does not believe in instruments. He hasn't seen much art in his life but is always in awe of it when he does. He loves spooky ghost stories from his former home in England. He happens to love engraving; something he does to pass the time on board the ship when there's not much to do. 

Rufus wears typical clothing for a pirate in the 19th century. His clothing is quite dated, very 18th century in style due both to taste and budget. He has one ear piercing and a 'From England' tattoo on his forearm. 

Rufus' home has been the sea for over 20 years. He comes from England originally. He sends the money he earns to his family so they can afford to keep looking after his numerous brothers and sisters. 

Rufus is a surprisingly gentle man, with a great sense of mercy. However, Rufus is very for himself. The fact that he loved Bartholomew so much was astounding and says a lot in praise for Bartholomew. 

He is thought of as a bit scary and stand offish so people avoid him. This is more out of respect, people know that he has had a lot of experience as a pirate. He thinks of himself as harmless, and a bit too soft. He is always trying to act straight, thus he's constantly monitoring himself. 

Rufus' humour is made of popular references to stories. He isn't known to interact often, but when he, he's a rather funny man. This is something Bartholomew fell for. 

Rufus believes in living for the good of his family.

Rufus is constantly caught mindlessly looking at his tattoo, playing with his sleeves, and petting down his eyebrows after licking his fingers.

Rufus is afraid of being outed as gay. He is quite distant because he is loyal to a fault to those he's attached to. He's a seemingly calm but highly nervous and an analytical man. 

Adrian mentioned that the eyebrows of the dad in cloudy with a chance of meatballs. Maybe a good reference to have in regards to Rufus' eyebrows and mustache. Could be quite nice to study his acting for Rufus' acting. 

I did some work over the weekend so I'm gonna just scan it in here: 

16/07/15 - Concept Development

I was thinking about simplifying the design and started to make notations around the drawings and it quickly became apparent that I don't really know enough about clothing that pirates wear which makes it harder to design for. I need to be able to see the full reality of the clothing so I can boil it down and simplify it for animation purposes. This goal is to get a very low poly look to my work. I'm starting to think about other low poly media. I quite like high saturation in it. It's interesting how all of my thoughts are starting to build of each other. 

thinking about Rufus' design 

As a result of my thought process I went to wikipedia and discovered the privateers (an armed ship that is privately owned and manned, commissioned by a government to fight or harass enemy ships)* were around circa 16th-19th century so I searched in that era for appropriate clothing. I was searching for a 19th century pirate wearing some 18th century clothing due to cost and also my personal taste for this design. 

It was pointed out to me by the tutor that I need to research the plush toy called Bartholomew that the lonely pirate Rufus will be kissing; and so I went forth and found plush toys of the 19th century. I intend to think about the shapes that seem to be achievable around the time and apply them to a parrot due to the piratey theme of this adventure summed up in a short but sweet four second clip.

I'm quite fond of the lil bunny buddy in the top left corner, he looks like a pal

I then used the research I did to design Bartholomew. I think I need to consider if I absolutely want Bartholomew to be a toy parrot or not. He could be a gun, or a flask, or a telescope. Maybe he could even be a person that Rufus has been messaging in a bottle for help or romance; who knows. The possibilities are endless. I should probably write out a story for our brave protagonist to dig up more of his story and get some design thoughts out. 

I went away and had a good think about it by doing a brainstorm. I came up with a fairly satisfying reason for what's happening in the scene and it feels far less comedic and much more serious now. This is something I was struggling with before. It felt like I was just re-skinning a comedy, but with this plot about Rufus and Bartholomew there will be quite a melancholic tone to the piece. I think it's fair to say that the setting should be an island of some sorts that Rufus swam to with this toy that Bartholomew made. Now that I think about it; is a parrot really the best creature for this. I thought it would be a good idea because it would continue the pirate motif but it may not be up to Bartholomew's sewing skill set. Perhaps a mouse would have been easier; and mice were definitely a feature on board ships so that would relate to that part of the narrative.

Critiques

• Try focus a bit more on the prop that Rufus has

This is a good reminder that I need to focus on getting feedback and critique from people...

I'm making myself sad over those so I think this plot is working

I came across a beautiful animator called Masonobu Hiraoka and I'm so inspired by the colour palettes that they use.

from their video "in the sea and near a girl"

Their work very strongly brings to mind another great inspiration of mine called Sachin Teng.

Ideas

• For the water, I could have a plane that I put a video on of moving ocean colours that are very abstract and sorta reference impressionism. The colours could come from a Bouguereau painting. 

• Explore shot angles. I'm thinking a skyscape could be really cool and quite neat to capture in low poly with moving planes against a sky box gradient. 
• Thing is you can't do a desert island in the middle of the sea without a palm tree so I would have to consider that when designing for modelling. The palm tree would be the most complex part of the modelling and texturing process and will take extra time. But I suppose that's okay if all the other parts of the landscape are super easy to model due to being basic shapes or even just planes. 

I ran away and documented what I thought could be cool to work on for a setting.

The genre of this piece is Adventure; this genre typically includes "quests for lost continents, a jungle, mountain, island, urban and/or desert settings, characters going on a treasure hunts and heroic journeys for the unknown."  This genre often features kings, battles, rebellion, and piracy. An example of an Adventure film is the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' film series centered around Captain Jack Sparrow.

If Rufus didn't give the order for Bartholomew to be put to death, then that means Rufus is not the captain - and so, he shouldn't be dressed as the captain. This means the design needs to have no pirate hat. Find a way to show Rufus as a pirate without the captains hat; perhaps a facial scar? Also remember that Rufus swam away from the ship with just that mouse to die. He wouldhave removed heavy things from his person. Does that mean he would have kicked off his boots and removed his belt? Maybe add an ear piercing? He will retain, a shirt and his pants, and that mouse that he was given. 

15/07/15 - Concept Development

Today was mostly about blog organisation rather than working on producing more content for my project. But, I did throw together something I intend to work on tomorrow. Mixing and mashing traits from the sketchbook thumbnails to create variations in design. The reason I picked the following two thumbnails to clean up is because they were the pirate designs that people I showed responded to the most positively.

I feel as though I've been doing well on my own steam but I need to do some visual research. I've been thinking about the proportions in TF2 and an animation called The Reward.

I researched some visuals for Rufus the pirate. I'm leaning towards an older raggedy pirate that relates well to his raggedy parrot toy.

14/07/15 - Concept Development

I'm thinking of having a pirate who's deeply in love with a toy parrot doing the same thing as Jesus from The Big Lebowski

I explored further in my sketchbook, thinking about the actual story I want to portray. I also wanted to jot down a few concept sketches.

13/07/15 - Concept Development

Just joined blogger! So this will be our daily blog for school and I wanted to test it out. It's the first day of term today, it was pretty good and a lot of pizza was eaten.

Today I've started making journal notes about the 3D Foundations assessment we were given today (summative brief - visual development.)

I think I will go for "The Big Lebowski" scene for this assessment.

I worked in my sketchbook, thinking about how I was going to approach this task.